Flora et Fauna: Update note.

I have been lax in my updates and writing. I apologize for this. I have finally found my colored pencils and picked up a set of watercolor pencils. This may not seem a big deal, but my primary medium for drawing natural themes are pencils. I've tried with markers and what I posted most recently is one of the better results. I also found one of my extra sketchbooks. This one is fairly small, but that actually works in my favor.

It allows me to put something together that more closely resembles the herbals of antiquity than the work of John James Audubon. (Not that I don't love Audubon's Birds of America and other works, it is just a level of work that is beyond me.) I tried with the larger paper but I simply couldn't get to where I had the organization and groundwork laid out for it. Now, I will attempt to keep my sketches detailed.

They will, however, be more like what you would find in this English herbal. It is also my plan to write notes with my sketches. I will be reworking the sketches I already have completed. I am looking for my other blank mini-sketchbook to create a bestiary. I may wind up just buying another one. (And I may even have it with different cover designs on it too.)

As the kids will be going back to school in a week and a half, I may not have a whole host of sketches and such for you. After school starts up again, though, I will be working on getting back to that previous level of work produced from before that terrible depressive episode started.

Craft of Writing: Making a Writing Schedule.

My writing Bullet Journal

So, I mentioned in my last craft of writing note that I have reworked my bullet journal. The layout is far more streamlined. It is the simplest that I have seen anywhere. (I still look through Pinterest and other places for ideas on how to improve my bullet journaling. Multiple colors assigned to different major projects is one example that I lifted from another place.)

I realized that I was attempting to go after things from a perspective of DO ALL THE THINGS! This is partly due to the fact that I am very ambitious in my thinking about my projects. And it is partly due to the fact that my initial work setting this up was a combination of a mixed episode and using it as an attempt to shift my attention from feeling awful. All together, it was just a problem to work with. I briefly considered just pitching the notebook. Then my refusal to waste paper hit me and I decided that I would just try again.

My 'pocket' Day Planner

The other thing that got influenced by the bullet journal concept wasn't just organizing my writing stuff. It was also how I approached my day planner. This originally was more like what FLYLady uses. Then I realized that format really wasn't working well for me with everything going on in my life.

Cue my setting my planner up with time blocked out as seen in the example to the left. It was almost effective. Then I realized that I needed to apply the bullet journal organization techniques towards my schedule. Add this to my finally having that damned depressive episode end and I found myself becoming better at scheduling my day. What isn't pictured in my day planner here is the time immediately after I get up. Some days, I may be up at 6, but more often, I am up at 5 am and I sit down to write my morning pages immediately after I am up for the day. (With a cup of strong coffee and my favorite pencils. I'll talk more about that next week.)

Later in the day, I block out time for writing in general. I am finding that if I give myself the same time to work in just about every day, it gets easier to write. Granted, I may just be writing rambling angry tirades about the idiots I find myself dealing with on a somewhat regular basis. (White supremacists repulse me and for some reason they seem to be regularly regurgitating the pablum of the Third Reich on platforms that I frequent on an increasing basis.) All of that writing is focused right now on just getting writing done.

My goal is to get myself to producing at a volume I want. This means effective time management techniques. The daily planner and the bullet journal are proving to be two very helpful tools. Also, I confess, I have been using a timer on my work as well. It was refreshing to find that I could still pull off writing approximately 300 words in fifteen minutes. (I have started doing prompt based writing again. I will post some of the prompts later this week. I need to pick the good ones to share with you because a lot of them are pretty lame, in my opinion.)

As my late Grandfather said, half of getting the job done is just showing up to work. A writing schedule is part of making sure that I do that. I also make sure that my schedule is one that does not get interfered with. It is hard and some days, I am not half as successful as I would like to be. But, every day is a chance to do better and do more.

Keep your chin up and keep trying to do your best, folks. ♥

Editing whilst hypomanic?

Hi folks,

If you're keeping score, I'm still trying to get medications sorted out. I'm somewhere between hypomanic and full blown mania right now. So, what am I doing (aside from cleaning all the things and getting super frustrated with everything)? Editing stuff. It is going SO SLOWLY.